On the first day of the US Senate’s session in 2014, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got right to work and made sure unfinished business got done. Despite a number of Senators not able to make it to the floor for Monday’s vote, Reid brought up Janet Yellen to be confirmed for the position of Chair of the Federal Reserve. With nearly 20 Senators still stuck in various parts of the country due to weather, Reid knew he had the 51 votes necessary to get her confirmed. The vote was 56-26 with a number of Republicans among the yeas.
In its 100-year history, the Fed has never had a woman head it. For a while in the summer of 2013. it looked like Yellen was going to be passed over by Larry Summers, former Director of the National Economic Council. However, the potential of Summers leading the Fed not only rankled Republicans who automatically oppose anything President Obama does, but many on the left who felt that his ideology was too far removed from not only the Democratic Party, but of the current Fed Chair Ben Bernanke. Summers ended up withdrawing his name from consideration.
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In Yellen, the Fed gets a very experienced person who has served under Bernanke as the Fed’s Vice-Chair. Yellen’s views align pretty much with Bernanke’s. Therefore, we should see a continuation of the Fed’s current policy of stimulating the economy with bond-buying. This seems especially true as Bernanke has stated that the economic recovery is not complete. Yellen also seems highly concerned with unemployment and will likely steer the Fed’s policies in a way to help job creation.
Yellen will take over as Fed Chair in mid-March. While the economy is not what one would call robust, she is being handed a much easier task than Bernanke was given when he took over at the tail-end of the Bush Administration. She will likely not have to deal with a complete and total collapse of the financial sector leading to worldwide economic disaster.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
